Puys

Last weekend Melissa and I defeated Puy #4, the Puy de Montrognon. Our goal is to climb five Puys before we become a family of three. The previous Puys were Gravenoire, Crouel and Dôme.

Montrognon is well visible from Beaumont and the surrounding hills and mountains. The ruins on its top and gentle slopes with fields and trees make it a picturesque view. We’ve talked about hiking up the Puy every time we went for a doctor’s visit at Clinique de la Châtaingeraie in Beaumont. And finally, this Sunday, equipped with a car to compensate for the non-existing public transport in the outskirts of Clermont, we finally went up.

Obviously the difficulty of our hikes is reducing, at about the same rate as the belly is getting bigger. We drove to the last residential houses on the slopes of Montrognon, and climbed up the last bit of a few hundred meters. The trail was steep enough to slow us down a lot.

The ruins at the top of the Puy used to be a watch tower from a twelfth-century Chateau. It’s surprisingly narrow up there, I wonder how a whole Chateau could fit into this small space. It was partially dismanteled in the 17th century by Richelieu in his attempt to reduce the power of the French nobility.